Health Literacy Vs Health Education

So if everyone can access information 24 7 why is health literacy still a.

Health literacy vs health education. Health literacy is linked to literacy and entails people s knowledge motivation and competences to access understand appraise and apply health information in order to make judgements and take decisions in everyday life concerning health care disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course. We live in a time of information overload. She has asked me if education level can be separated out from overall health literacy of a patient and is there data or research available that speaks to the relationship between an individual s education level and their level of health literacy.

Health consumers are bombarded with tweets alerts fake news contradictory studies and more. Christy calhoun senior vice president consumer health experience. The positive and multiplier effects of education and general literacy on population health particularly women s health are well known and researched.

The patient protection and affordable care act of 2010 title v defines health literacy as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain communicate process and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions. Education higher levels of education are associated with high rates of adequate or better individual health literacy disability people living with disability may be at risk of low individual health literacy for functional reasons such as poor vision or cognitive impairment. This is also the definition that was included in healthy people 2010 and 2020.

Seven steps to improve your patient s health outcomessixty per cent of canadians over the age of 16 and 88 per cent of seniors have low health literacy. The cdc defines health literacy as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain communicate process and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions in essence health literacy is the end goal to strong patient education. Literacy and health people who read at lower levels are generally 1 5 to 3 times more likely to have an adverse health outcome as people who read at higher levels removing the numerous barriers to achievement of primary education will be a crucial part of action on the social determinants of health literacy has central role in.

A physician at my health system is leading a patient experience team and is focusing efforts on health literacy.